Compar And Contrast

Compare and Contrast paper.

The stories by Shirley Jackson, "Charles" and "Louisa Please Come Home", are two stories that I will focus on to compare them on their similarities and differences. The main characters both get into trouble with their parents, but make every step perfect yet both still get caught. Laurie is a boy who makes up a character, "Charles." He gets into trouble, but fixes his problems to late. Louisa is a teenager who runs away from home for three years and she tells her mom exactly what she is going to do. She wants to come home after dropping out of college. I will compare and contrast the two stories.

Laurie is a five-year-old boy who goes to kindergarten and is a prankster at school. Every time he gets in trouble he says that "Charles" acted bad today. All the times that Charles stayed after school Laurie said that the whole class had to stay because Charles was bad.

Shirley Jackson

Laurie photographing

Laurie and the Medallist

Then Laurie started acting well in class and told his dad that Charles is acting well now and he is volunteering in class and his dad couldn't believe. Then there was a P.T.A meeting and Laurie went with his parents to school. His parents where anxious to meet Charles but Laurie was nervous and he knew that he was going to get caught. When Laurie and his parents went to talk to his teacher the teacher told them that Laurie started off bad then his parents asked about Charles, and they said that there is no Charles here.

Louisa is a teenager who runs away from home for three years ago and stole money so she could provide for herself. She radios her mom a couple of times a year to keep in touch and every time she talks to her mom she say that she wants her to come home. One of the things that she does is tell her mom exactly what she is going to do. She talks about how she is going to come home for a couple of days for her sisters wedding and become a bride's maid but she doesn't. She changes he name but not her personality, she does this to see if her parents could identify her to see if it is worth coming back home. They don't recognize her and she decides not to go home. She thinks that at least 100 people saw her that she knows that in reality, only Mrs. Peacock her neighbor.

Both Laurie and Louisa make bad decisions in their life but they should have just moved on instead of running away or keep on doing. They should of just tried to correct it and move on instead of just planning a good plan. Laurie tried to correct her problems by participating in school and helping out but it was already to late because he started to improve only one week after and should of told the truth on what she did so she would have gotten less in trouble. Louisa should have just faced the fact that drooping out wasn't a good idea so she shouldn't. Instead of facing her problems she ran away. Both of them made mistakes that they regret and want to change, but it is to late for them to change it.

Louisa and Laurie acted badly, and both of them hid from their mistakes instead of facing it. For Laurie he lied a lot of times but he should have know that his lies would have come back to haunt him twice as hard. Louisa just hid from her fears and expected it to go away but now her fear of facing her father and running away hit her harder. Both of them where trouble makers and got punished for making there pranks and Louisa shouldn't have ran away instead that should of faced there problems and faced it with out fear to conquer it.

Laurie Metcalf

Laurie and Herbie

English: Laurie at her high school graduation